How Do I Deal With Enforced Solitude During this Time?

[[Dear Sister, I am one of those people who hates to stay in! I am an extravert and love to spend time with friends. But  now I am having to stay in and it is causing anxiety --- though I am sure part of that is being scared because of the Corona Virus. I wondered if you ever feel these kinds of things when you are alone? Do you have any suggestions on ways to lessen anxiety or spend my time in this enforced solitude?]]

Great questions. Thanks. What is striking to me, and has been striking to those I am in touch with, is what this Lenten season has plunged us into. We begin Lent with stories of Jesus being driven into the desert (wilderness) by the Spirit, and of the fundamental choice we are each called to make again and again, not only during this season -- choose life not death! And we are still in Lent -- a Lent which is being deepened and will be extended beyond what we ever expected. I say this because my first suggestion is to stay in touch with this season; it will help contextualize the situation in which we find ourselves and even normalize it to some extent. Above all it will provide a perspective which is more familiar and can make some sense of the novel and unfamiliar circumstances we are now experiencing. Allow the things we talk about all during Lent to be the categories through which you view what is being asked of you by this pandemic: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

Fasting will take many forms as your normal routine and the normal ways of making sense of your life are taken away from you. If you are used to thinking of fasting in terms of food, that may still work, but it will be extended to time with friends, social activities, the availability of necessary items, etc. Prayer will also be extended and deepened for many people in light of the circumstances. I would certainly encourage this in your own daily life. It may be difficult to spend time in quiet prayer if you are not used to it (though I encourage you to try this by starting with limited periods (15 minutes) of simply being quiet with God), but you can sit and consider those people you most love, those you would be spending time with, family, etc and simply allow yourself to be with them as a supportive presence. Let whatever feelings you have for these people come up, let yourself love them, feel grateful for them and all they are for you, and ask God to be with them as they also are suffering in various ways. Almsgiving is certainly something we can deepen and extend during this Lenten period (and beyond it). One way is by refusing to become greedy or engage in hoarding or gouging behavior. Another is by doing errands for those who cannot get out or don't have transportation. Another is by giving what we can to those without housing, adequate heat, food, or hygiene. In suggesting these kinds of things I am aware I am really suggesting nothing more than the Church asks from us every Lent. The Pandemic is not the will of God, but at the same time it can be used as an opportunity for the Spirit to work in our lives.

Yes, sometimes I feel anxiety in solitude, though not usually because of the solitude itself. I expect a lot of people are going to be experiencing cabin fever. I would urge you to find indoor activities you can get truly engrossed in. If you are a reader then do more of that, if you like puzzles, set a table aside for this and begin a large puzzle you've been waiting on. If you keep a journal (or if it is time to start one!) consider doing that and write about your experience. How about coloring or painting or some other thing you've been wanting to try? What about an online class in something that interests you? There are many of these available including languages, Scripture, history, DIY projects, etc. And, speaking of DIY projects, I should definitely mention those big time cleaning and culling projects we all put off! Most of us have activities we complain we don't have time for. Well, now is the time. Please don't expect to ease all of your anxiety; if you can allow yourself to feel this is normal, uncomfortable as it is, do that. If you need to distract yourself in some way (taking a solo drive* or walk, or a walk with a single friend, watching TV, etc) then do that. Add these things to the essential Lenten elements mentioned above. Some of these can easily become prayer: simply ask God into whatever activity you are undertaking. Do this in a conscious way and renew the invitation or your thanks to God for being with you in this occasionally throughout.

And of course, find ways to maintain contact with friends, Skype, Zoom, or Facetime conversations, phone calls and texting could be very helpful here. Schedule some of these so you have something to look forward to. Expectations are an important piece of dealing with solitude, especially when one is not used to it. (In prayer it is important not to have expectations re what kind of experience it will be, for instance, but at the same time it can help to build in things you really enjoy at specific times so you can look forward to them as you move through the tedium of the day.) I should add here that it is often mainly the tedium of days in solitude which really gets to folks**; we all experience this. Sometimes we forget that our need for novelty does not satisfy our need for genuine newness. What monastics/hermits know is that our lives with God are filled with genuine (qualitative) newness each day even when there is not a lot of novelty. That requires real patience and trust in God. I have written about this in the past so you might check for articles on this if you are interested. cf., Always Beginners as a start. Getting used to fasting from novelty and opening ourselves to qualitative newness is something this time might allow you (and others) to do -- something that is especially important given the fact that this situation is going to be longer-lasting than we have yet let ourselves realize. As time goes on I may suggest other things to assist with enforced solitude. For now I sincerely hope this is helpful.
_____________________

*Except for necessary trips such drives are not allowed in the SF Bay Area. (I admit I don't understand this limitation if one is alone.)

** Though I have not written about this before, I should mention that another issue in solitude is finding that one simply doesn't like oneself very much. I can't address that here of course, but it is something folks should be aware of since it raises all kinds of feelings, irritation, fear, anxiety, anger, etc. For those who simply don't trust themselves or their own inner resources in such a situation as this pandemic, solitude can also be quite difficult. Again, these folks can use this period as a Lenten period of growth and new experience calling for patience and trust. Whether we like ourselves well or not, we will need to trust that our own inner capacities and resources are greater than we might have imagined otherwise. Above all we trust in the love of a God who accompanies us in everything.

What do you Like Best About Eremitical Life?

 [[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered if you could explain what you like best about the eremitical life? Since you don't do a lot of active minis-try that would provide variety, I am assuming that is not a favorite part, so what is? Maybe this is not the best way to ask the question. I guess I am really wondering what part of your life is most enriching or what part you look forward to every day especially if every day is the same because of your schedule. I hope you can understand what I am asking here. Thank you.]]

Now that is a challenging question! It is not challenging because I don't know what I look forward to each day or really like, but because there is no one thing I like best. I guess saying that out loud gives me the key to answering your question then.  What I like best about eremitical life is the way I can relate to God and grow in, with, and through him in this vocation. This is also a way of saying I like the way this vocation allows me to serve the Church and world despite or even through the limitations I also experience. Each of the elements of my life helps in this and some days I like one thing more than another but still, that is because each one contributes to my encounter with God --- usually in the depths of my own heart --- in different ways, to different degrees, on different days.

So, on most days I love the silence and solitude and especially I love quiet prayer periods or more spontaneous times of contemplative prayer which intensify these and transform them into the silence of solitude --- where I simply rest in God's presence or, in the image I have used most recently, rest in God's gaze. It is here that I come to know myself as God knows me and thus am allowed to transcend the world's categories, questions, or judgments. Sometimes these periods are like the one prayer experience I have described here in the past. But whether or not this is true, these periods are ordinarily surprising, or at least never the same; they are transformative and re-creative even when it takes reflective time to realize that this has been happening.

Another thing that I do each day which is usually something I really love is Scripture, whether I do that as part of lectio or as a resource for study or writing. Engagement with Scripture is one of the "wildest rides" I can point to in my life. It is demanding, challenging, and often exhilarating. Sometimes it doesn't speak to me in any immediately dramatic way. But it works on my heart like water on something relatively impervious --- gradually, insistently, and inevitably. Other times, for instance when reading Jesus' parables or other's stories about Jesus, or even the theological reflection of John and Paul, I have the sense that I am being touched by a "living word" and brought into a different world or Kingdom in this way. It always draws me in more deeply and even when I have heard a story or passage thousands of times before something speaks to me on some level in a new way, leads to a new way of understanding reality, or shows me something I had never seen before.

A third piece of this life I love and look forward to is the writing I do. Some of this is specifically theological and there is no doubt that my grappling with Scripture is important for driving at least some of my writing. Whether the writing is the journaling I do for personal growth work, the blogging I do which, in its better moments is an exploration of canon 603 and its importance, a reflection on Scriptures I have been spending time with, or the pieces which can be labeled "spirituality," they tend to be articulations of what happens in prayer and in my own engagement with Christ. One topic I spend time on, of course, is reflection on the place of eremitical life under canon 603 in the life of the Church herself. Since I am especially interested in the possibility of treating chronic illness as a vocation to proclaim with one's life the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a special vividness, and since I have come to understand eremitical solitude as a communal or dialogical reality which is especially suited to the transfiguration of the isolation associated with chronic illness, etc, I write a lot about canon 603 and the solitary eremitical vocation.

A second area of theology I return to again and again is the theology of the Cross. I remember that when I first met with Archbishop (then Bishop) Allen Vigneron he asked me a conversation-starter kind of question about my favorite saint. I spoke about Saint Paul (wondering if perhaps I shouldn't have chosen someone who was not also an Apostle --- someone like St Benedict or St Romuald or St John of the Cross) and began to talk about his theology of the cross.  I explained that if I could spend the rest of my life trying to or coming to understand his theology of the cross I would be a happy camper. (I have always wondered what Archbishop Vigneron made of this unexpected answer!)

I saw incredible paradoxes and amazing beauty in the symmetries and strangely compelling asymmetries of the cross and I still discover dimensions I had not seen. Most recently one of these was the honor/shame dialectic and the paradox of the glory of God revealed in the deepest shame imaginable. I have written previously about God being found in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. This paradox is a deepening of that insight. The Cross is the Event which reveals the source even as it functions as the criterion of all the theology we have that is truly capable of redeeming people's lives. It is the ultimate source of the recent theology I did on humility as being lifted up to be seen as God sees us beyond any notions of worthiness or unworthiness. My life as a hermit allows me to stay focused on the cross in innumerable ways, not only intellectually (reading and thinking about this theology), but personally, spiritually, and emotionally. That is an incredible gift which the Church --- via the person of Archbishop Vigneron and the Diocese of Oakland --- has given me in professing and consecrating me as a diocesan hermit.

There are other things I love about eremitical life (not least the limited but still significant (meaningful) presence and ministry in my parish it makes possible or my spiritual direction ministry); these are also related in one way and another to the person I am in light of living contemplatively within the Divine dialogue I know as the silence of solitude. One of the things which is especially important to me is the freedom I have to live my life as I discern God wills.

Whether I am sick or well, able to keep strictly to a schedule or not, I have the sense that I live this life by the grace of God and that God is present with me in all of the day's moments and moods. It doesn't matter so much if writing goes well or ill, if prayer seems profound or not, if the day is tedious or exciting, all of it is inspired, all of it is what I am called to and I am not alone in it. This means that it is meaningful and even that it glorifies God. I try to live it well, of course, and I both fail and succeed in that, but I suppose what I love best is that it is indeed what I am called to live in and through Christ. It is the way of life that allows me to most be myself in spite of the things that militate against that; moreover it is the thing which allows me to speak of my life in terms of a sense of mission.  The difficulty in pointing to any one thing I most like about eremitical life is that, even if in the short term they cause difficulty, struggle, tedium, etc., all of the things that constitute it make me profoundly happy and at peace. I think God is genuinely praised and glorified when this is true.

I hope this gives you something of an answer to your question. I have kind of worked my way through to an actual answer --- from the individual pieces of the life that are most life giving to me to the reasons this life as a whole is something I love. One thing I hope I have managed to convey is that even when the schedule is the same day to day, the content is never really the same because at the heart of it is a relationship with the living and inexhaustible God. Your question focuses on the absence of variety and in some ways, the absence of novelty (neos). But really there is always newness rooted in the deeper newness (kainotes) of God.

Imagine plunging into the ocean at different points within a large circle. The surface looks the same from point to point but the world one enters in each dive is vastly different and differently compelling from place to place. So, following the same daily horarium, I sit in the same chair (or use the same prayer bench) to pray; I work at the same desk day in and day out. I open the same book of Scriptures and often read the same stories again and again or pray the same psalms, and so forth. I rise at the same hour each day, pray at the same times, eat the same meals at the same hours, wear the same habit and prayer garment, make the same gestures and generally do the same things day after day. There is variation when I am ill or need to leave the hermitage, but in the main it is a life of routine and sometimes even tedium. But the eremitical life is really about what happens below the surface as one opens oneself to God. It is the reason the classic admonition of the Desert Fathers, "Dwell (remain) in your cell and your cell will teach you everything" can be true, the only reason "custody of the cell" is such a high value in eremitical life or stability of place such a similarly high value in monasticism.

Hermit Life as Prophetic

[[Hi Sister O'Neal, given that Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter does not even mention canonical hermits and exhorts religious to think of the distinctive characteristic of religious life as prophecy, how does this fit in with your own vocation? I admit I have a very hard time thinking of hermit life as prophetic! It seems selfish and very old-fashioned to me. Prophets always seemed more exciting and into a freshness and newness that challenged those they came to. But hermits sit in their cells and pray. How can that be considered prophetic?]]

This is truly a great set of questions! I am not sure I can do them justice, in fact, but I also look forward to trying. First, though Francis did not mention diocesan hermits explicitly, they are included in the category of consecrated persons to whom the letter is mainly directed. Also, Francis did speak specifically to contemplatives and made suggestions to them regarding ways they could be a prophetic presence in our world. Even so, I believe that my own vocation is profoundly prophetic and I have felt this way for at least the past 25 years or so, and most especially over the past 10 years or so. The key for me is that this vocation is a way of proclaiming the truth, challenge, and promise of the Gospel in and for a world which, at every point, stands for something else entirely.

For instance, my vocation says that we are never truly alone and that God is a constitutive part of our very being. (Consider what a complete absurdity the above picture symbolizing the life of the hermit would represent if neither part of this assertion were true!) We are dialogical events at our very heart and this means that our basic gift and task is our humanity. No matter what else goes on in our lives, no matter what other successes and failures touch or characterize us, this basic charism and challenge is still ours and always something we can, with the grace of God, fulfill. Isn't that the real success of Jesus on the Cross? Namely, that in the midst of abject failure and absolute degradation Jesus remained true to the dialogical reality he was, continued to depend totally on God to make his life (and his failure) meaningful, and remained wholly open to the power of Love-in-Act to transform the world --- even (or especially) the godless realms of sin and death which so condition it at every point. This is indeed a prophetic word our world needs to hear and it is one, I think, hermits can proclaim with their lives precisely because in most every way our world measures success, personal significance, or meaningfulness, the hermit fails to measure up.

Similarly then, the eremitical vocation therefore says that solitude is not the same as isolation. In a world characterized by isolation and, to a tremendous degree, the fear that life is essentially meaningless, especially when we find ourselves alone (Merton used to speak about the terror of boredom and futility), my vocation speaks directly to that and says, "Not so!" In a world where folks seem to feel like exiles and be in search of relationships which allow them to be loved and to feel as though they belong, the hermit reminds us that ultimately speaking, that is beyond any limit or conditioning element, God loves us, holds us to be infinitely precious, and transforms us into persons who CAN love others as well as ourselves. We say with our lives of eremitical solitude that belonging begins with this fundamental relationship and from there extends to family, Church, world at large, and even cosmos. Because we are at home with God and with ourselves, we know that we can be at and make our home anywhere; we can recognize and empathize with others who may feel or be alienated and call them brother or sister precisely because we are in communion with God. One of the reasons I stress the ecclesial nature of the consecrated eremitical vocation in the church is precisely because this stands in such stark and prophetic contrast to more worldly versions of eremitical life which are essentially individualistic and estranged.

Exile is a central category for understanding the eremitical life. In fact, hermits voluntarily embrace exile, a life of distinct alienness and marginality precisely so they can witness to the more profound belonging that characterizes every life in union with God. This dynamic of exile and more profound belonging seems to me to be quintessentially typical of the prophetic life. And of course this is important because life as we know it is a pilgrimage in which we are each exiles to greater and lesser degrees. Whether it is through experiences of acute or chronic illness, betrayal or bereavement, failures in work or studies, loss of friendships or any of the 1000's of things which set us apart from others every day of our lives including, sometimes, our prayer and yearning for God, we know deep down that we are not truly at home and that we are made for something else, something more, something which completes us and gives us (and the rest of creation) rest. Through her voluntary exile and all that characterizes it the hermit witnesses to this something more and to the completion and rest that is ours in God alone. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a prophetic word the world needs to hear.

At the foundation of all of this is the hermit's prayer and penance which she undertakes for God's own sake. God wills to be the answer to the question we are, the completion of a love which seeks fulfillment in another, the rest which comes of truly being heard --- and therefore, truly being precious to and part of God's very life. God seeks through us to transform and bring to completion the creation we are and in which we now live. He seeks to make of it a new creation where heaven and earth entirely interpenetrate one another; He seeks, in other words, to be all in all. If we are aware of the pain, isolation, desperate search for meaning, and struggle of those around us, we must also be aware that our God has revealed himself to us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, but is prevented from realizing this goal at every turn. While Christ was God's unique counterpart, God also seeks in each of us a counterpart to receive and return his love so that he might be Emmanuel more extensively. A hermit gives her life so that she might truly be there for God in at least this small way. She does so so in union with Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit so that one day, there will be a new heaven and new earth whose heart is life in communion-with-God. It seems to me this is and has always been the very essence of the prophet's work and commission.

By the way, your comments on prophets and the freshness, newness, and excitement of the prophet's life deserve some comment too but, unfortunately, I have to stop here. For now let me say that so long as God --- who is always new (God could not be eternal otherwise) --- is at the center of our lives, the freshness, newness and excitement you mentioned will be there too. While we might not commonly associate these words with contemplative lives of prayer and penance, this is the reason such persons are so essentially happy and sort of "unstoppable" if you know what I mean. Contemplative life and (I am bound to say) eremitical life in particular is an adventure --- no doubt about it! I suspect that people are in search of just such an adventure and, as I have already written in Always Beginners, the reason we almost compulsively seek the newest gadget, car, computer, smart phone, or become shopaholics and the like is because most often we have substituted the quest for the novel (Gk. neos or nova, new in time) for that which is always qualitatively new in our lives (Gk. kainotes, kainos), namely a relationship with the creator God in whom all newness is rooted, a communion with that Love-in-Act who makes all things new. In this too hermits (and anyone who makes a vow or embraces the value of evangelical poverty) serve as a prophetic presence and speak a prophetic word to our world.

Please note that I have written about all of these things in the past so I am aware that much of this post is repetitive; I have simply not tended to link them to the word prophetic so, thank you (along with Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter) for providing the opportunity to do that.

Hermit Life as Prophetic

[[Hi Sister O'Neal, given that Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter does not even mention canonical hermits and exhorts religious to think of the distinctive characteristic of religious life as prophecy, how does this fit in with your own vocation? I admit I have a very hard time thinking of hermit life as prophetic! It seems selfish and very old-fashioned to me. Prophets always seemed more exciting and into a freshness and newness that challenged those they came to. But hermits sit in their cells and pray. How can that be considered prophetic?]]

This is truly a great set of questions! I am not sure I can do them justice, in fact, but I also look forward to trying. First, though Francis did not mention diocesan hermits explicitly, they are included in the category of consecrated persons to whom the letter is mainly directed. Also, Francis did speak specifically to contemplatives and made suggestions to them regarding ways they could be a prophetic presence in our world. Even so, I believe that my own vocation is profoundly prophetic and I have felt this way for at least the past 25 years or so, and most especially over the past 10 years or so. The key for me is that this vocation is a way of proclaiming the truth, challenge, and promise of the Gospel in and for a world which, at every point, stands for something else entirely.

For instance, my vocation says that we are never truly alone and that God is a constitutive part of our very being. We are dialogical events at our very heart and this means that our basic gift and task is our humanity. No matter what else goes on in our lives, no matter what other successes and failures touch or characterize us, this basic charism and challenge is still ours and always something we can, with the grace of God, fulfill. Isn't that the real success of Jesus on the Cross? Namely, that in the midst of abject failure and absolute degradation Jesus remained true to the dialogical reality he was, continued to depend totally on God to make his life (and his failure) meaningful, and remained wholly open to the power of Love-in-Act to transform the world --- even the godless realms of sin and death. This is indeed a prophetic word our world needs to hear and it is one, I think, hermits can proclaim with their lives precisely because in most every way our world measures success, personal significance, or meaningfulness, the hermit fails to measure up.

Similarly then, the eremitical vocation therefore says that solitude is not the same as isolation. In a world characterized by isolation and, to a tremendous degree, the fear that life is essentially meaningless, especially when we find ourselves alone (Merton used to speak about the terror of boredom and futility), my vocation speaks directly to that and says, "Not so!" In a world where folks seem to feel like exiles and be in search of relationships which allow them to be loved and to feel as though they belong, the hermit reminds us that God loves us, holds us to be infinitely precious, and transforms us into persons who CAN love others as well as ourselves. We say with our lives of eremitical solitude that belonging begins with this fundamental relationship and from there extends to family, Church, world at large, and even cosmos. Because we are at home with God and with ourselves, we know that we can be at and make our home anywhere; we can recognize and empathize with others who may feel or be alienated and call them brother or sister precisely because we are in communion with God. One of the reasons I stress the ecclesial nature of the consecrated eremitical vocation in the church is precisely because this stands in such stark and prophetic contrast to more worldly versions of eremitical life which are essentially individualistic and estranged.

Exile is a central category for understanding the eremitical life. In fact, hermits voluntarily embrace exile, a life of distinct alienness and marginality precisely so they can witness to the more profound belonging that characterizes every life in union with God. This dynamic of exile and more profound belonging seems to me to be quintessentially typical of the prophetic life. And of course this is important because life as we know it is a pilgrimage in which we are each exiles to greater and lesser degrees. Whether it is through experiences of acute or chronic illness, betrayal or bereavement, failures in work or studies, loss of friendships or any of the 1000's of things which set us apart from others every day of our lives including, sometimes, our prayer and yearning for God, we know deep down that we are not truly at home and that we are made for something else, something more, something which completes us and gives us rest. Through her voluntary exile and all that characterizes it the hermit witnesses to this something more and to the completion and rest that is ours in God alone. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a prophetic word the world needs to hear.

At the foundation of all of this is the hermit's prayer and penance which she undertakes for God's own sake. God wills to be the answer to the question we are, the completion of a love which seeks fulfillment in another, the rest which comes of truly being heard --- and therefore, truly being precious to and part of God's very life. God seeks through us to transform and bring to completion the creation we are and in which we now live. He seeks to make of it a new creation where heaven and earth entirely interpenetrate one another; He seeks, in other words, to be all in all. If we are aware of the pain, isolation, desperate search for meaning, and struggle of those around us, we must also be aware that our God has revealed himself to us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, but is prevented from realizing this goal at every turn. While Christ was God's unique counterpart, God also seeks in each of us a counterpart to receive and return his love so that he might be Emmanuel more extensively. A hermit gives her life so that she might truly be there for God in at least this small way. She does so so in union with Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit so that one day, there will be a new heaven and new earth whose heart is life in communion-with-God. It seems to me this is and has always been the very essence of the prophet's work and commission.

By the way, your comments on prophets and the freshness, newness, and excitement of the prophet's life deserve some comment too but, unfortunately, I have to leave this here. For now let me say that so long as God --- who is always new (God could not be eternal otherwise) --- is at the center of our lives, the freshness, newness and excitement you mentioned will be there too. While we might not commonly associate these words with contemplative lives of prayer and penance, this is the reason such persons are so essentially happy and sort of "unstoppable" if you know what I mean. Contemplative life and (I am bound to say) eremitical life in particular is an adventure --- no doubt about it! I suspect that people are in search of just such an adventure and, as I have already written in Always Beginners, the reason we almost compulsively seek the newest gadget, car, computer, smart phone, or become shopaholics and the like is because most often we have substituted the quest for the novel (Gk. nova, new in time) for that which is always qualitatively new in our lives (Gk. kainotes, kainos), namely a relationship with the creator God in whom all newness is rooted, a communion with that Love-in-Act who makes all things new. In this too hermits (and anyone who makes a vow or embraces the value of evangelical poverty) serve as a prophetic presence and speak a prophetic word to our world.

Please note that I have written about all of these things in the past so I am aware that much of this post is repetitive; I have simply not tended to link them to the word prophetic so, thank you (along with Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter) for providing the opportunity to do that.

A New Heaven and a New Earth: God With Us

In Friday's reading from Revelation we heard John's vision for the future, a vision that might be really different than that which many of us have entertained over the years of our faith, and yet it is a profoundly Christian vision and one which is meant to carry us into and through Advent.

Now, there is no doubt that Revelation is a difficult book, and not one most Catholics (nor many mainline Protestants for that matter) have sat down to read. It is filled with imagery that needs to be decoded for us; the theology has been connected to cultic movements, some of them quite destructive, books about rapture and the antiChrist (despite the fact that neither word appears in Revelation), and generally associated with something very far from that of the other canonical books of the Bible. Critics have referred to its author as a drug addict, characterized its theology as that of a slaughtering Christ, spoken of its inclusion in the canon as an evil, and in less critical moments pointed out that at the very least it requires a revelation to decode it.

But if we think of the Bible as a library of books we might be surprised to find that Genesis and Revelation begin and end a great deal of history with very similar visions. Genesis begins with a view of God and human beings dwelling together in a garden. They walk together and it is only human sin that alienates human beings from this state. Today we read this text in two ways: 1) synchronically as a narrative about the original nature of the human/divine relationship and vision of the nature of earthly existence, and 2) diachronically as a vision of what human beings are therefore made for and what a renewed heaven and earth will one day look like. In Revelation, difficult and confusing details aside, John (et al) gives us a vision of an ultimate new creation, a "new heaven and a new earth" where "God is all in all" and death and sin are destroyed. God and human beings exist in communion with one another and God is revealed as God with us in the fullest sense.

The theme of "God with us" and the idea that this is truly the will of God occurs again and again throughout the Old and New Testament Scriptures. In Exodus God writes his law on the hearts of his people and gives them the Law -- a sign of the covenant between them, the covenant where God's faithfulness always means God is with his People in ways limited only by human sinfulness. God gives them explicit and detailed instructions on constructing the Tabernacle ("mishkan") a symbol of his dwelling (tabernacle or mishkan means dwelling) with his people in a way which allows his Shekinah or glory be revealed.

Similar instructions are given for the construction of the Temple in which heaven and earth meet and heaven (wherever God's sovereign presence is shared with and by others) interpenetrates our world. In his definitive revelation in Christ, Jesus, the new Temple of God, the One who penetrates the realms of sin and death and breaks down  the boundaries between sacred and profane, is explicitly named Emmanuel or God With Us. In the sending of the Spirit we are given a consoler so that God may be with us in a new and pervasive way while in the Church, her Eucharist and other Sacraments God reveals himself again and again as the One who would be God-With-Us. The Incarnation is not God's bandaid solution to the problem of human sin (though it does effectively deal with sin) but the definitive act in which God is revealed (made known and made real) in space and time as Emmanuel.

John's vision of a new heaven and a new earth in which God and human beings dwell in union with one another, where God is all in all, is not a vision we are used to imagining. We are more used to thinking in terms of dying, going to heaven and eventually being re-embodied in a resurrection there in heaven. But throughout our Scriptures the theme of creation and recreation, the remaking of heaven and earth into a single reality and a God whose will is to dwell with us, "walking side by side" with us (as is celebrated in Genesis' poetic imagery) recurs again and again.

Our own move into Advent invites us to open ourselves and our imaginations to God doing something new (kaine or qualitatively new!!) --- something beyond the historical Jesus we look back to, or even the risen Christ we know now. It is an invitation to share John's vision in Revelation and imagine the complete destruction of sin and death that was begun in Nazareth so long ago as well as our world's ultimate fulfillment in God's final act of new creation in Christ. Imagine a Kingdom in which human beings have a dwelling place in God's own heart while God as Love-in-Act is entirely at home in our own transfigured and glorified world. This, after all is John's great vision in Revelation and the image the Church gives us the day before we begin our Advent period of waiting and preparation. It is the vision Israel placed at the beginning of the OT as they characterized God as present and walking hand in hand with Adam and Even in the Garden. With this in mind, I would encourage folks to open themselves throughout Advent more and more to a new way of seeing reality, a new vision that is not only genuinely sacramental and sees reality as it is now, but, because God reveals his very nature and will as Emmanuel, also imagines reality's promised future which culminates in a new heaven and a new earth, a future in which God will be God-with-us in an exhaustive way.

Recommendations for Advent reading:

Elizabeth Johnson CSJ's Ask the Beasts, Darwin and the God of Love (The second part of the book is especially recommended but the whole is wonderful)

Ilia Delio, OSF, From Teilhard to Omega, Co-creating an Unfinished Universe

Vatican II is irreversible!!! GET ON WITH IT!!

If I had to say what it was about Francis' interview in Thinking Faith (or America) that was so stunning to me, what made it so completely overwhelming, I would point to all the individual points he made which reflected the clear and unambiguous influence of Vatican II. When I look back over my own reading of those 12,000 words I see someone stumbling upon piece after piece of the Pope's comments as though she had discovered a treasure only to find that there was another treasure further on, and yet again after that. It took me two days to read the entire interview and when I finished it I was both energized and exhausted with joy and gratitude and hope.

But eventually I would need to point to one piece of the interview which was stupefying to me (it transcends and unites all the other stunning moments!), namely, what Pope Francis said clearly and unambiguously about Vatican II and the whole "hermeneutics of rupture (or discontinuity) vs continuity" business. In one single sentence Francis told the entire Church that, the hermeneutics of rupture and continuity aside, (especially to the degree they are played off against one another and become dominant and divisive), Vatican II and its way of approaching reality in light of the Gospel (and vice versa) is irreversible so (he strongly implied) GET ON WITH IT!

Here is the passage with the critical sentence emphasized. [[Vatican II was a rereading of the Gospel in light of contemporary culture, " says the pope. "Vatican II produced a renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical situation. Yes, there are hermeneutics of continuity and discontinuity, but one thing is clear, the dynamic of reading the Gospel, actualizing its message for today --- which was typical of Vatican II --- is absolutely irreversible.]]

To a certain extent casting the story of the inter-pretation of Vatican II into that of continuity vs discon-tinuity or rupture has been a red herring since no competent theologian ever interpreted Vatican II as a rupture with the Church's Tradition. Instead they recognized that it involved reNEWing of the Church in terms of a deeper continuity --- that of the Gospel from which the Church's life stems and by which it is nourished and ordered.

Renewing the Church in terms of the Gospel did indeed make all things new, but at the same time there was a profound continuity preserved and fostered. No progressive theologian spoke of Vatican II as ONLY a rupture with Tradition, but they certainly looked carefully at that which was truly new, as well as sometimes contrary to accretions to and distortions of Tradition. Over time those alarmed with the momentum Vatican II had in parishes, dioceses, and lives everywhere stressed the continuity of Vatican II with the Tradition --- and over stressed it so that again and again what we heard was "nothing new" happened at Vatican II, or, "one cannot speak of a Spirit of Vatican II; one can only read the documents of Vatican II literally in a way which precludes any discontinuity with the Church's Tradition." Anything new was seen as a betrayal of the Tradition while Tradition came to be identified with the merely old. Newness was identified with simple novelty (neos, new in time) and Tradition with that which was incapable of genuine newness (kainotes, qualitatively new). Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: New because Eternal, Notes From Stillsong: Always Beginners.

The  deepest problem here was that when Tradition was looked at in this way proclamation of the Gospel and the implementation of Vatican II was crippled and the Gospel's  power to address and continually remake reality in a way consonant with the ever-new and eternal life of God was blocked.  However, this approach also produced unnecessary division. Catholics who desired to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, were always really relatively few in  number, but were insultingly portrayed as though they reflected the unCatholic and destructive agenda of progressive theologians; this in turn made it difficult for these professionals to speak of the work of the Holy Spirit in our world (much less in the Council) if that required or led to anything new at all.  Meanwhile, those who reacted to this cartoon version of things and who embraced the idea of continuity without ANY discontinuity were hardened in their embrace of the past (not of Tradition itself which is a living reality) as norm of all truth. Both positions are heretical; both caricature Vatican II and what was achieved (and attempted) there. Both prevent God from drawing us into the absolute future of his life where all is truly new.

It is this entire situation that Francis has addressed with his statement quoted above. Here Francis affirms the existence of the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity (extremists do exist on either side of the interpretative divide and too, substantive conversations over difficult points of interpretation must continue to take place) but he says very clearly that the basic reform nature of the Council was rooted in the Gospel and he clearly affirmed we need to continue to hear the Gospel in terms of the contemporary situation. This essential focus and momentum of the Council is irreversible. It is the teaching of the Church, indeed the highest teaching of the Church binding Popes and People, and we must act in light of it.

At any number of points in this interview Francis helps the Church to move beyond division, pettiness, and ideology so that the Gospel of God's mercy can be proclaimed. More, again and again he turns to the Gospel to overcome (and to demand we ourselves overcome) the division, pettiness, and ideological impulses that taint our faith and lead us to neglect the real struggles of our time. But it seems to me that it is here in his comments on Vatican II that these marching orders are most far-reaching and  are most profoundly articulated. Many people have been waiting "for the other shoe to drop" and for Francis to show us who he REALLY is --- thinking that would be a doctrinal hardliner who belonged in the CDF rather than the seat of chief shepherd. Well, in this interview I think the other shoe HAS dropped and what we have been shown is a man who is the one we have seen right along since his election as Bishop of Rome.

Already we are hearing traditionalists denying anything new is coming out of Rome these days. "What NEW tone?" says one online commentator. "A new tone? REALLY?" says another. (The more honest tradionalists are decrying Francis as a liberal traitor. Some are asking (seriously) if the Pope is Catholic or if the Church will be standing at the end of his papacy.)  On the other side of the extremist spectrum we have folks suggesting anything goes, Church dogma and sexual morality will fundamentally change or be jettisoned. In truth what Francis has done is more radical than either of these extremes for it transcends and corrects them in light of the Gospel of God in Christ. He speaks continually of the Good news of God's love and justice-making mercy, which, as I said in Religious are Prophets, MAKES ALL THINGS NEW.

But for theologians long-hampered by some of the hierarchy's resistance to the idea of anything new being introduced by Vatican II, by the effective invalidation of the term "the Spirit of Vatican II", and disheartened by apparent sustained attempts to roll VII back to Trent by folks within the highest levels of the Church, Francis' affirmation is a staggeringly clear and unambiguous commission to renew their work with the vigor of their theological youth and the shrewdness and wisdom of their current experience and age. For the rest of the Church it signals a call to revisit and reclaim the hope, enthusiasm, and promise occasioned by the Council 50 years ago while we all work towards the day VII is fully received by the Church. Vatican II and its way of approaching reality in light of the Gospel and all that demands is irreversible. We must GET ON WITH IT!

What does it Mean to Live in the Present Moment?

[[Dear Sister, could you please write about what it means to be attentive to or "live in" the present moment? I have heard about this a lot but it is hard for me to understand. For example I need to plan for the future; does that mean I am not attentive to the present moment? Some-times I love to think about my past and the ways God has blessed me. Does this mean that I am not focused on the present moment? How could this be true? I keep thinking there must be some trick to this [idea of dwelling in or being attentive to the present moment] because the moment I feel like I am focused on the present moment that moment is gone! It reminds me of those optical illusions: when you look straight at them they slip away or turn into something else.]]

The Eternal God and Absolute Futurity

I like your sense of humor in all of this and yes, I think you are right that there is a kind of "trick" to it. Your observation on optical illusions is also very apt I think. From a theological point of view we are drawn into the future by God; God IS (the) absolute future so when we speak of being attentive to the present moment  (i.e., to the constant inbreaking of futurity) we are really speaking about living in God and allowing ourselves to be gifted by him at each moment of our lives.  Here is where I think your comment on optical illusions is especially appropriate because if we try to focus on achieving this by our own efforts, or look at time "straight on" as though it was an object somehow under our control, or if we think of the present moment as something other than the constantly renewed inbreaking of futurity we will miss our goal of attentiveness to the present moment entirely. Again, our experience of future is our share in God's own life and that is where our focus must be, not on time as separate from that. Our openness to futurity (and thus to the present moment) is a conscious share in eternal life and occurs as God draws us into it and into Godself. We can only be open to it and receive it as gift. As with the optical illusions you referred to, in part that means relaxing some and simply letting things come to us as they will.

Not too long ago I wrote about our hunger or yearning for newness and I pointed out the difference between the Greek words for newness. You may remember I spoke of kainotes or kaine as a qualitative newness which is tied to God's eternity. It differs from neos which is simply a newness in time or mere novelty (e.g., yesterday I did not own this book or this new pair of shoes, today I do). I noted that God is always new in the sense of kainotes because he is eternal and that God is eternal because he is "Living" or eternally new and makes all things new as well. cf Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Always Beginners and/or Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: On Divine Paradox Theology's sense of God as absolute future is directly related to all of this and too to our experience of the gift of abundant or eschatological life.

This is one reason some theologians refer to God and the Kingdom of God as "The Eternal Now" (cf some of the sermons of Paul Tillich in a book of the same name). This is part of the reason I speak of heaven as a share in God's own life or sovereignty. Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: On the Feast of the Ascension Time (and the passage of time) is a dimension of our still-limited share in God's life, in the absolute future. It, especially as the inbreaking of futurity, must be continually renewed, continually received as gift until that day when God is all in all. Meanwhile our yearning for qualitative newness (kaine!) is also our yearning for the absolute future we identify as eternity; it is a yearning for the "day" (the eternal now) when our own share in the absolute future which is God's own life is fully realized.

Living in the present moment as Celebration!

All that said let me try to deal with your specific questions.  When you focus in a prayerful (i.e., an attentive and grateful) way on how God has blessed you in the past, you open yourself to God here and now and thus to future blessings and the blessings of futurity. Sometimes events of the past can constrain us and prevent openness to the future. For instance, this can happen when such events traumatize us or when we are unable to accomplish the healing of forgiveness. The past can also be merely constraining as when our relationship with it is one of mere sentimentality or when we enshrine it in forms of dead traditionalism and language. (This latter can be a serious instance of resistance to and even sin against the Holy Spirit!) But none of these are what you are describing here.

What you have described instead is a form of celebration and it seems to me that genuine celebration is always a way of living in the present moment which frees us from any enslaving constraints of the past and thus opens us to the future (or perhaps better said, marks us as open to the future, as truly drawn by and into the future). When we think of the Eucharist, for instance, it is significant that the very making present of the risen Christ in the consecration  is accompanied by Jesus' command that, "Whenever you do this remember me" (or, "do this in remembrance of me"). The rite of penance and the reading of our ancient Scriptural stories, for instance, also work in this way; they provide us a means of remembering which opens us to futurity and newness. Celebration is precisely that attitude and act of remembering which makes the past a present reality in a way which leaves us free and thus draws us into the future. This is very different from the ways the past may bind and enslave us and leave us unable to embrace the future.

You also speak of planning for the future and wonder if that means you are not being attentive to the present moment.  I think that so long as your planning does not mean being completely controlling of what will or can happen or does not refer to a lack of openness to the surprising ways life and meaning come to us you are okay. The paradox though (there is ALWAYS paradox!) is that if we do not do some planning for the future it cannot break in on us in the way it is meant to. Instead it will simply pass us by relatively untouched. We will be older, more bored by and perhaps more quietly despairing of the mere passage of time, but the future will not have broken in on us in the powerful way we know and mark with Pentecost for instance. (cf Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Always Beginners) Remember that the inbreaking of futurity is not simply the arrival of empty time, but the arrival of a reality filled with meaning and hope that creates genuine future; it is the arrival of the presence of God to, for, and with us. Planning ordinarily indicates our own awareness of the limitations of time, an awareness of our own limitations in truly engaging with it, and our openness to the inbreaking of absolute future. Besides the relaxation spoken of above such openness requires work (cooperation) on our own part. It also requires structure or "routine".

This is one of the reasons hermits have Rules and horaria. Our days are structured in ways which allow opportunities for the inbreaking of God's powerful presence and for celebration of this presence. There is plenty of time and actual provision for prayer, personal work (journaling, the work connected with spiritual direction, etc), and recreation (not the same as mere entertainment!). Also built into the hermit's days are different kinds of prayer, different types and degrees of silence and solitude, and different kinds of penance (practices which generally are meant to help extend and support the celebration of the present moment we call  prayer; for some the very imposition of structure or routine is a piece of eremitical penance!).

I personally disagree with hermits who have no essential structure or shape to their days and say, for instance, that they depend entirely on responding to the Holy Spirit at each moment as the Spirit determines. I suspect they are fooling themselves --- at least a lot of the time; I am afraid that more often than not, time is merely sliding by in relative unfruitfulness and unresponsiveness. (Occasional desert days where we leave the usual schedule behind are important as PART of the overall structure of the life; so is sufficient time for true monastic leisure. By the way, I am also generally skeptical of the approach of spiritual direction clients, for instance, who make no room for formal prayer periods in their days and say, "Oh I pray all the time during the day and that's what works for me.") While we cannot force the Holy Spirit with the structure we build into our days, we can assist ourselves in achieving necessary attentiveness and focus in this way; we can create opportunities for the Spirit to touch, heal, convert, and thus draw us into the future. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those hermits whose horaria are so rigid and inflexible that the Spirit is given little space to work real newness or bring them beyond where they already are.

I haven't spoken about the more mundane elements involved in living in the present moment except by way of allusion (healing of memories, the place of spiritual direction and therapy, the role of journaling, the place of detachment which helps break the bonds of enmeshment, etc.); instead in this post I have mainly spoken of the theological underpinnings of the idea of living in the present moment and intended it as a beginning.  Because of this I think it is likely this response will raise more questions for you. If so, or if I need to clarify something, please get back to me. In the meantime, the following post may also be of some help: Notes From Stillsong: A Missed Opportunity, A Moment of Judgment

On Divine Paradox: The God who is truly New because he is Eternal and Unchanging

I had a conversation with someone today regarding some questions she was asked to answer about the image of God she held. The questions were posed in an either/or format: do you believe in  1) a God that is unchanging or 2) a God that seems to change? Do you believe in a God of  1) might and majesty or 2) one who can be addressed as Daddy or Mommy? Do you believe in a God that is incomprehensible or a God who can be known and even described? That kind of thing. The problem with either/or formats is they never do justice to the paradoxical nature of God. In fact they are apt to tear the paradoxical nature of God asunder and in the process lose the really amazing qualities of the God of Christian Tradition. Now, I suspect posing questions in an either/or way is designed to see where the respondent stands generally in their approach to spirituality and reality. Those asking the questions are probably not ordinarily expecting a tremendously theologically sophisticated answer which demands BOTH answers be given their due in a paradoxical form --- although they may well be hoping someone will surprise them with their answers in this regard. Even so, depending on the context, asking questions in this way may be theologically misleading. In any case I want to look a bit at the first question because it came up recently, though indirectly, in the post "Always Beginners". Throughout I will refer to the distinction between kaine (qualitative newness) and neos (newness in time) raised in that earlier post.

I have written about paradoxes here quite a bit over the past five years but it is time to say something about these kinds of questions and how one addresses them adequately because the answers are never either or but both/and, and even more sharply, one BECAUSE the other. For instance, I recently wrote about the experience of being always a beginner in prayer and I explained that it was the fact that God was eternal and living that mainly accounted for that experience. Actually, there is a significant paradox here that has to be clearly affirmed, namely: to the extent God is eternal, so too is God always new. To the extent God always was, always will be (i.e., is immutable), to the extent God never grows, matures, or deteriorates (i.e., is ungenerated and incorruptible)) and does NOT change, so too is God ALWAYS new. Or, to the extent God is genuinely new (qualitatively or kaine new, not simply novel or new in time), God is truly eternal (ungenerated, incorruptible, immutable). We speak routinely of the God who is eternal and living to express this paradox. We are not speaking of a static God --- for static would not be living OR eternal. Static refers more to the realm of death than to One who would be the ground and source of ever-renewed life. (As Thomas Aquinas noted, rest or cessation of movement implies imperfection.) ONLY the eternal is always and everywhere new. Only the eternal God is truly dynamic. Only BECAUSE God is unchanging and always fully being-in-act is God ALWAYS NEW. Conversely, only because God is always new (kaine) and dynamic is God eternal.

 Michael Dodds, OP notes while commenting on Thomas Aquinas' theology, [[ Far from implying, therefore, that God is somehow static or inert, immutability directly signifies that God. as subsistent esse [which is not the same as simply existing], is pure dynamic actuality. And while we may still rightly predicate motion of God in virtue of his immanent activity of knowing and willing and in virtue of his causative act of creation and providence, we best designate the dynamic actuality of God who exercises, or better, is this act when we speak not of a changing God, who would possess only the limited actuality of a creature, but of the immutable God who is the boundless actuality of subsistent esse itself.]] The Unchanging God of Love, Dodd, Michael OP, pp 159-160

Problems occur in theology when paradoxes are neglected or unduly softened.  Thomas Aquinas had an appreciation of paradox and spoke, among other things, of the movement of the immovable God or the motion of the motionless God. Unfortunately those that followed him often did not appreciate paradox and used the categories of his thought in ways which betrayed Thomas' own insights and work. Thus, some who argued for God's immutability in language which was similar to Thomas' ended up with a static God and no way to do justice to his dynamism. In contemporary theology we most often find theologians trying to do justice to God's dynamism in ways which deny his eternity and immutability. This enterprise is important in light not only of the Biblical witness and Christ Event, but in light of an evolutionary world where science and faith learn to relate to one another as complementary approaches to reality. On the other end of the spectrum we still find theologians trying to do justice to God's eternity and immutability by denying his dynamism, his living quality, his always-qualitative-newness; sometimes this is because they resist or deny the truth of an evolutionary world or a God who creates via evolution and sometimes it is because they have not truly perceived the depth and uniqueness of Aquinas' own thought.

To deny God's eternity in order to stress his newness or apparent changeability is to substitute a God who may be novel (neos) but one who is incapable of making all things qualitatively new (kaine). He is insufficiently transcendent or sovereign and there is no reason to believe we can really hope for anything ultimate from him. Such a "god" may indeed change, evolve, and be an exciting reality in the short term, but unless he is ALSO eternal and immutable that change may well include ceasing to be as it does for everything else. On the other hand, to deny God's eternal qualitative NEWNESS (kainotes) in order to assert his eternity and immutability gives us a "god" who cannot relate to an evolutionary creation much less ground its newness and summon it towards fullness. What has to be maintained is the ever-new God who grounds evolutionary reality and does so precisely from a position of transcendence and eternity. He summons an evolutionary world into existence from the absolute future of his own being. In other words, without an eternal and transcendent God, there would be no evolutionary world moving towards fulfillment in greater and greater levels of complexity and intelligibility.

None of this is merely an exercise in logic. We assert paradox because God has revealed himself to be essentially paradoxical. He is the eternal, unchanging God who is both always new and, in his transcendence and immanence, is the source of all genuine newness. He is the sovereign God of might and power who reveals himself perfectly in self-emptying (kenosis) and weakness (asthenia). He is the God of justice who asserts his rights over reality and makes all things right or just via mercy. He is the WHOLLY OTHER God who is revealed most clearly in turning a loving heart and human face to the world while he reveals himself in Christ as the exhaustively compassionate one, the incomprehensible God who is known only to the extent he is an essential part of our lives and knows (embraces and inspires) us intimately. No part of these paradoxes can be sacrificed without sacrificing God's very nature. Thus, answers to questions like those with which  we began this post demand formulations like: "I believe in a God who is both/and," and further, to sharpen the paradox, "I believe in a God who is one thing only because or to the extent he is the other."

Always Beginners

[[Dear Sister Laurel, you wrote that hermits feel like novices even after living the life for decades. Why is that? I think Saint Teresa of Avila said like she always felt like a beginner in prayer. Are you speaking of the same experience?]]

Re your first query, what a terrific question --- and a difficult one too! I have never really thought about why one always feels like a beginner at living as a hermit even when one has lived this way for years (which, as I think about it, is definitely not the same as being a novice or neophyte),  but I would say that a large part of it has to do with the reason we are always beginners in prayer, yes. In other words, your question is a profoundly theological one and the answer itself has to do with the nature of God and the nature of prayer.

It is important to remember that prayer is more the action of God than that of human beings. Even when we define it as raising our minds and hearts to God we are speaking of something both initiated and empowered by God. Prayer is God at work in us, and when we speak of prayer periods or engaging in prayer we are speaking of those privileged or dedicated times we allow God to work more freely in us than we may at other times. Therefore, it is not, by definition, something we can become practiced at even though the smallest part of it involves our own actions and dispositions. While we can learn to relax physically, become comfortable in silence, deal with thoughts and distractions, open ourselves more or less to God's presence, a large part of prayer (including our desire to pray) is what God does within us --- and there is always a newness and a kind of incommensurability about this --- even when God's movement within us is subtle at best.

I think the second reason is related. When God is active within us, and especially when we open ourselves to that activity, we change. Our hearts become deeper and more expansive in their capacity to love, our eyes and ears are opened to the really real (Ephphatha!), our minds are also converted, and everything looks and feels differently because we ourselves are different. Thus, through the power of God we are attuned more and more to the eternal which interpenetrates our world and this means that things are never old, never static, and perhaps no longer really completely familiar. I think that ordinarily a piece of judging whether we are a beginner or not is gained by comparing how familiar doing something is. When these things are familiar there is an ease about them, and we are able to gauge the expected results without much conscious attention to things. With prayer, however, we are constantly being brought into a "far country" and in contact with a dynamic, living God we cannot imagine much less set forth expectations about. There is a sense of adventure here, even when it is very very muted; I am not sure that adventure in these terms is ever something we are "old hands" at.

At the same time there is also monotony and sometimes a tedium about eremitical life; like everyone we may crave short term novelty and distraction, but be uncomfortable with the patience and persistence required for genuine newness. Our world often mistakes novelty for authentic newness and we are profoundly accustomed to and conditioned by this. Yet, the yearning for real newness is a part of our very being. (In the NT there are two different words for new which accent this distinction. The first is kaines or kainetes which indicates a newness of character which is superior and respects the old; the second is neos which means new in time but can also mean a denigration of the traditional or the old.) The situation of monotony and tedium is exacerbated because prayer can seem like nothing at all happens despite our trust (knowledge) that God is present within us working, touching, loving, recreating, and healing.

In the short term especially we may not be able to see or sense the changes that are occurring within us and since the hermitage itself changes very little, in worldly terms we think we are not progressing. This too can make us feel like beginners because we don't feel "we are getting anywhere". It might seem that this conflicts with what I said above about the adventure of prayer, but it is more the case that both things are occurring at the same time and we see one or the other according to our perspective. I think though, that this set of reasons (focusing on our own progress in worldly terms) is far less significant or influential for contemplatives --- and that is especially true if we are speaking of St Teresa of Avila or someone similar.

In light of what I said about the distinction between novelty and authentic newness above, it occurs to me that some folks imagine heaven (the realm where God is truly Lord) as really tedious or boring (thus they fill it or at least imagine it filled with activities!); but the simple fact is that the God who is eternal and living is, for these very reasons, always new. Our own yearning for newness is a yearning for God and life with God, not a desire for novelty or distraction. (One of the reasons Christians embrace some form of poverty, by the way, is precisely to be sure their lives are attuned to the new (kaines, kainetes) rather than to the novel (neos). For those truly attuned to the new there is therefore less need to become shopaholics, less need for every new gadget or electronic gizmo. But the novel is seductive and religious poverty as value or vow helps limit the degree to which it seduces us!!) It seems to me that to the degree we are truly attuned to God's presence and live in grateful communion with him, to the extent we really are a new creation, all is new to us as well. We experience all of this with gratitude and the sense that we are always beginners.

I will definitely think about this more --- especially the link between gratitude and always being beginners just opened in the last sentences. The entire reality is fascinating, both as a topic and especially as an experience to which persons of prayer witness; so again, many thanks for the questions. I am sorry I don't have a better answer, but for the time being I hope this is helpful.